Page 109 of The Woman with the Handcuffs

We’d turned onto an unpaved backroad about forty minutes ago. The trees closed in tight around us, blotting out the sun, casting the car mostly in darkness. If you glanced out the window, all you could see were trees, not even a hint of sky.

She wasn’t wrong.

It was claustrophobic.

Almost sinister-feeling.

But maybe that was just how someone who’d lived in the city their whole life would feel.

“You never know. You didn’t even react to the bridge this time.”

“I had other things to worry about.”

“It’s the next left,” Leo’s soldier said, making the whole car tense. “Then a right into the driveway.”

“It’s at the end of a really long driveway,” Caitlin told us. “I remember that because I thought it would be good because I could see people coming from far away.”

Which meant they would see us coming.

It looked like the car that got ahead of us had the same thought. Because they were parked on the top of the crossroad just before the driveway.

“Talk to me,” Leo demanded as we climbed out of the SUV.

“I have two guys scoping out the cabin. Didn’t want to wait for you if shit was going down.”

“Good,” Leo said. “We are going in too. Can you stay with Caitlin?” he asked, nodding toward the car.

“Yep.”

“You have a piece?”

“Yes.”

“Keep her safe,” I demanded as I reached for my gun.

There was no time to tell her we were going, to offer her hollow reassurances.

So I just turned back to the SUV. The tint was thick. I couldn’t see her. But I knew she could see me. I gave her a nod.

Then I ran into the woods alongside the road, following Leo and his man.

Woods were great for staying visually undetected. But there was nothing quiet about littered underbrush.

I felt like my foot crunched leaves or twigs every other step, the sound amplified until I could swear the approach could be heard from inside the cabin.

Caitlin wasn’t kidding about the length of the driveway. It seemed to stretch on forever until, finally, the cabin came into view.

It was a small wood cabin with a steeply pitched roof and a slight overhang that covered the front porch.

Under different circumstances, I might have stopped to admire it.

But there was no time for it. Because not only was Caitlin’s car parked there, but so was an old pickup truck. With no one inside.

I took instructions from Leo to go around the back of the cabin.

The other guys who’d gone ahead were nowhere to be seen. Not until we rushed in through the doors to find them standing in the mess of the one-room interior.

There was evidence of Daniel all around—mussed bedsheets on the wood-framed bed shoved up against a wall, one of those noir novels Caitlin said he liked sitting on the plaid couch, a coffee cup in the sink, and at least a dozen reusable store bags sitting on the dining table.